


The other woman

by duraznero



Series: The Other Woman - Leta/Tina [1]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon-Compliant, F/F, Missing Scene, POV Tina Goldstein
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 09:03:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16720374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duraznero/pseuds/duraznero
Summary: When Tina heard of Newt’s engagement in the paper, she was furious. When Newt told her it was a misunderstanding, she was relieved. When she actually met his not-fiancée known as Leta Lestrange, she didn’t know what to feel at all.





	The other woman

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do and basically produce an F/F ship out of nowhere. Anyway, I loved Leta (and Zoe, who played her phenomenally) a lot, she deserved so much better than the storyline she got but I wish we will still see her in some flashbacks in future movies.
> 
> A big shout-out to fantasticbeastsfantaticlove on tumblr who was my beta!

It was an awkward moment, there was no other way to describe it. Tina and Newt were hanging onto the shelf’s frame, just moments ago with the fear of losing their grip and falling into the spinning maze, and now they were caught right in the act. How? Tina had no idea. Maybe Leta Lestrange-soon-to-be-Scamander had the same legilimency powers as Queenie and had heard them think in terror. Or maybe it was just that her keen eye had caught Pickett lurking through the shelf.

“Hello, Newt.” It was a very pleasant voice, low and melodic, and the way she said Newt’s name stirred something within her, and Tina found herself wishing her name would've been spoken with such sharp gentleness.

“Hello, Leta,” Newt replied.

If they wouldn’t be in such a dangerous situation, Tina would have laughed. It would be really surprising if they were to see the next morning and not be either dead or incarcerated. Might as well be polite in your final moments. She turned around to face Ms. Lestrange, and looked her right in the face. Tina blinked. She had seen her on the magazine cover before, but seeing her in the flesh just drove the point home that Leta was a truly gorgeous woman.

“Hi.”, she said hastily. It felt as if the moment she held her breath and scanned the woman’s face took ages instead of a split second.

Their eyes met, and Leta’s dark eyes bore into her. The corners of her mouth twitched, she raised an eyebrow and her full lips curved into a small smile. Next to her, Newt let out a gasp and Tina tore her gaze away from the woman standing on the other side of the balustrade and towards the newcomer - the secretary, or rather guardian, of the archive, in tow with three demonic-looking cats. Tina’s hand almost went to the pocket where her wand rested until she registered that Newt was surprisingly hesitant - or maybe not that surprisingly, considering his love for all creatures, dangerous or not. And these felines definitely looked dangerous, with murderous intent written all over them.

“What kind of cats are those?”, she asked, trying to swallow her fear.

“These are matagots, they are employed as security by the French Ministry of Magic.”

“They won’t hurt you unless you-”, Newt continued in a calm tone just in the same moment - as Leta Lestrange pointed her wand at the creatures, almost so fast that her eyes didn’t catch it.  
Leta, who either heard Newt’s warning too late or not at all and had already yelled ‘Stupefy!’, then stepped back in horror as the creature was hit by the red lightning and instead of collapsing like intended, multiplied into three.

“- unless you attack them.” Newt murmured defeated.

“Oops.”, was her quiet reply.

The felines let out hisses and charged forward to attack them, and Newt’s not-fiancée swung herself over the balustrade. She yelled “Reverto!” as she jumped onto the shelf Tina and Newt were holding onto just as they started spinning again to their previous positions and a long-nailed claw tore through the air where Leta was standing mere moments ago. The shelf moved away and back to the center, and as if on cue, all three of them let go, as Tina cast a spell to soften their landing - and noted with surprise that Leta had the same idea.  
They ran between the shelves which were quickly inserting themselves into their spots in the floor, followed by the hissing matagots, but when they saw the locked gate, Tina knew they were doomed.  
Newt seemed to think otherwise, and he threw his case on the floor.

“Get in, now! Hurry!”

Leta made a wide gesture with her wand, and two shelves moved in front of them to cover them from the felines’ view. It was the last thing Tina saw before she climbed into the luggage and practically jumped down the set of stairs into the refuge for Newt’s creatures.

 

She had barely time to breathe when Leta stumbled into the pocket dimension, moving much quicker than Tina was. She missed a step, fell and she crashed into Tina, causing both women to tumble to the bottom of the stairs.

“Good gracious, are you alright?”

Above them, Newt shut the case and hurriedly ran down the stairs.

“Yeah, I’m good.” Tina said, brushing the dust of her coat.

“I think I have an idea”, she heard him say under his breath, more to himself than to his companions as he sprinted past them.

As Leta rubbed her knee with a pained expression, Tina flicked her wand and non-verbally cast a healing spell, followed by a repair spell to undo the damage done to the fabric of her dark purple dress. The other woman watched in slight awe, still a bit stunned from the fall probably, as the threads re-sew themselves by magic and then looked up to Tina with big dark eyes.

“Thank you.”

Tina opened her mouth to reply when out of nowhere, the Zouwu sped past them like a bat out of hell and she heard Newt yell from its back: “I’ll give you a sign when it’s safe to come out again!”

And at once, they were alone, the entrance shut and Newt gone, off to fight the Ministry guards on his own. Tina sighed and put her wand pack in her pocket, turning back to Leta.  
She hadn’t had the proper opportunity to take a good look at her at the balustrade, something which she could do now, and she had to correct herself: the magazine cover could in no way do justice in a simple image - even if it was magical - to truly show the full beauty of Leta Lestrange. Her long hair had mostly fallen out of place and fell upon her shoulders and slender neck like dark cascades. Her hollow cheekbones which would’ve made most people look gaunt accentuated her face in a lovely way, and Tina was sure that if it were possible, one could drown in the deep brown of her eyes.

“You’re very welcome, Ms Lestrange”, she said politely and held out a hand for Leta to take. For a moment, her eyes lingered on Tina’s hand as if it was the first time someone had shown basic courtesy to her, and they moved away to Tina’s face.

“I don’t think I caught your name, Ms…?”, she asked, her voice like a siren song.

“Goldstein.”, Tina quipped, suddenly feeling very stupid and like a schoolgirl on her first day at Ilvermony. “Porpentina Goldstein.”

Leta took her hand and pushed herself of the floor while Tina pulled her up. While doing so, she could have sworn that Leta’s eyes wandered from her eyes over to her neck and down her body, and she felt a strange tingle underneath her skin.

“Thank you then for your kindness, Ms Goldstein.” Leta said and let go of Tina’s hand to straighten her eggplant-colored dress.

“I assume you’re a friend of Newt’s?” Newt? Oh, right.

“Yes, we met while he was on business in New York. I work for the MACUSA as an auror.”

Her brows furrowed when Leta’s lips twitched and a chuckle escaped her. Right away she composed herself though and her expression changed of amused to apologetic.

“Pardon, I didn’t mean to laugh. But I heard it was quite the… disaster. Trouble always found its way to Newt, whether he wanted it or not.”

“And a lot of trouble it was.” Tina sighed, suddenly feeling very tired.

“Yes, too much to for me to be making light-hearted jokes.” Leta said, and Tina knew she was being earnest.

“Don’t worry about it.”

At that, Leta’s face broke out into a full smile, and Tina felt her face heat up, tore her eyes away from the woman she had despised and resented just up until mere minutes ago for supposedly being engaged to the man she had feelings for. This beautiful, charming woman who had both an innocence and mischievousness about her that Tina could easily see why someone like Newt - or anyone, really - could fancy her.

“Have you… ever been to America?”

Something within her face shifted, as little as it was but Tina noticed a sudden hardness in her eyes as Leta inhaled deeply and straightened her back. She instantly regretted her choice of small talk topic.

“Yes.” And she obviously didn’t like it but was too polite to say so.

The sound of the suitcase being opened brought her back into reality.

“That would be the sign.” Leta said and turned away from her, walking up the stairs, and Tina shook herself internally before following her out of the case.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback and constructive criticism are very welcome! I'm thinking both thinking of writing an "epilogue" of sorts for this (which will go into AU-territory), and also of starting a multi-chapter fic focused on Leta with Leta/Tina as a main ship if my studies at uni allow it, so I hope this will make people curious to their combination of these two! <33333


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